10 years of Flick Filosopher: ‘The Legend of 1900’ and a great year for film

Mon Oct 23 2006, 07:01am | comments off

I first compiled of a best-of-the-year list in 1999, a year that I think will go down in cinematic history as one of the great ones, like 1939 — it was hard to whittle my list down to a mere handful of extraordinary films, there were so many. One of them is The Legend of 1900:

But the most wonderful scene in The Legend of 1900 is when Max, and the audience, first meets the grown-up 1900. A storm is tossing the Virginian violently about. 1900, strolling effortlessly around, shows the desperately seasick Max, who can’t keep to his feet, into the ballroom. While the huge chandelier sways above them and chairs are thrown about the ballroom, 1900, Max at his side, sits at his wheeled grand piano and plays while the piano rolls around the ballroom. My poor description does little justice to what is one of the most magical and imaginative movie sequences I’ve ever seen.